"Are you glad the army came in, even though you were driven out of your homes?" Holbrooke asked.... "America has given a lot of assistance and food," Holbrooke said. "But it's up to the Pakistan Army to give you security. That's not our job."
You gotta be effin s***tin' me!!! The reason they are INSECURE and why we have a REFUGEE CRISIS is because of US INSISTENCE!!! They HAD a PEACE DEAL and WE TOLD 'EM to SCRAP IT -- or else!!!!
"US envoy tours refugee camps" by Karen DeYoung, Washington Post | June 5, 2009
The US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke (left), talked with refugees in northwest Pakistan yesterday. (Associated Press)
Screw Holbrooke!!!
Look at what just BRIGHTENED MY DAY (hint: the little one on the knee there)!!!!
Looks like you need to lose a few pounds there, too, Dick!
SWABI, Pakistan - Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, declared yesterday that the tide had "decisively turned" in the military's battle against Taliban extremists in the Swat Valley, but displaced Pakistanis in a sprawling tent city said it was still unsafe for them to go home.
The Shah Mansour camp was one of two Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, visited yesterday. Located south of Swat in North-West Frontier Province, its population has swelled to more than 20,000 in the three weeks since it was set up. Holbrooke told Pakistanis that President Obama and the United States care about them and are helping their government aid them.
Yeah, thanks for the PREDATOR DRONE MISSILES and the military hardware given the Pakistani Army!
More than 3 million Pakistanis have fled their homes amid fighting that began with a government military offensive in the northwest early last month.
The number is mind-boggling!
Most have taken refuge with relatives, friends or strangers, but at least 200,000 are in hastily erected camps.
Strangers? See: Pashtun Hospitality
Better than the government's "squalid tent cities."
"The Obama administration is concerned that the Pakistani government will risk a Taliban return by failing to permanently secure and reconstruct areas devastated by the fighting.
This perplexes me. Why would even be worried about unpopular "terrorists" having a return, blah, blah, blah.... unless the MSM wasn't being straight-up with us. How could school-burning, head-chopping, wife-whipping people even have a chance.... unless?
Also see: Pakistan Losing Public Support Against Taliban
Holbrooke spent several hours meeting with aid workers and refugee representatives and walking among tents baking in 110 degree heat. When someone looked out of a tent, he asked whether he could go in, then stooped to enter amid staring children and nervous parents.
Yeah, he gave the place a once over!
Related: What Didn't Make My Boston Sunday Globe
All told more or less the same story: They had fled their cool mountain villages, bringing nothing but the clothes on their backs, as the army began its air and ground offensive against entrenched Taliban forces. They hated the heat and the food and had nothing to do but worry about what they had left behind.
"Are you glad the army came in, even though you were driven out of your homes?" Holbrooke asked a group of men. "We will be happy when there is peace," one answered. A gray-bearded elder shouted from behind him, "We want this thing to end . . . We are fed up with living like this."
Well, they HAD THAT with the PEACE DEAL, but, you know....
"America has given a lot of assistance and food," Holbrooke said. "But it's up to the Pakistan Army to give you security. That's not our job." On Wednesday, Holbrooke met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and said Obama had asked Congress for $200 million more for the crisis.
(I will be looking at that below)
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Of course, the hubris (and lying) didn't stop there:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - War-ravaged Pakistan has turned a corner and is now serious about crushing the Taliban, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said yesterday, yet the need is also growing for Pakistani refugees to return home and rebuild their lives.
Who are the "Taliban," anyway?
"Something of a catchall term for loosely affiliated insurgents without a singular command structure (New York Times July 24, 2007)."
"The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997."
Ending a three-day visit to Pakistan, Holbrooke, the Obama administration's envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he saw a Pakistani population that grasps the gravity of the threat posed by Taliban militancy - a dramatic shift from how people here previously viewed the issue.
And while in the past the Pakistani military had been criticized for lacking resolve in combating and eliminating militants, Holbrooke said he was convinced that the country's leaders and commanders were intent on ridding their country of Taliban fighters.
Yup, they are WITH US....
But Holbrooke added that gains can be lasting only if Pakistan and the international community focus on the next crucial phase - reconstruction - so that the more than 3 million refugees who have fled the fighting can return safely to their homes and the lives they once led.
Yeah, THANKS for CAUSING the CRISIS, asshole!!!!
"The real test is how quickly the refugees will be able to get back to their homes," Holbrooke said at a news conference in Pakistan's capital. "The reconstruction bill will be very large, at least as large as the humanitarian bill that we are facing now," he said. "But having turned the corner, it's going to be essential to consolidate the gains."
Yeah, like in Iraq? Turn a corner and THERE IS ANOTHER CORNER!
The challenges Pakistan will face as it embarks on the task of returning normalcy to the lives of refugees were underscored yesterday, when a suicide bomb killed 38 people gathered for prayers at a mosque in the volatile region of Upper Dir.
It was a reminder that violence has yet to wane despite sizable gains made by Pakistani troops against the Taliban militants. Moreover, efforts to return refugees to their hometowns and restore physical and social infrastructure figures to be hindered by suicide bombings and police ambushes.
The bomber yesterday detonated the explosives outside a mosque in the village of Hayagay Shergi as Pakistanis were preparing to go inside for prayers, residents from the village said. At least 14 killed were children, according to local authorities.
I'm smelling one HUGE, FALSE-FLAG STINK-STENCH, folks!!!
Two months ago, tribal elders had organized a militia to oust Taliban fighters from the area, local residents said. The attack occurred a day after security forces arrested three aides of Sufi Muhammad, a radical cleric whose son-in-law is Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban's leader in Swat who remains at large.
Designated patsies. It's ALL "Al-CIA-Duh!"
Holbrooke's visit to Pakistan included meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Pakistani military commanders, and Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. He said that in those meetings, discussion focused on the importance of returning refugees to their hometowns and livelihoods.
Pffft! Then WHY did WE ENCOURAGE and INSIST they do this? More LACK of FORESIGHT and CONSEQUENCES of American planners? I thought that went out with Bush? Isn't that why we elected this guy?
"We've all seen refugee camps that start out as tent cities and harden into permanent towns and villages," Holbrooke said.
Why did PALESTINE and PALESTINIANS just pop into my head?
Don't you think 60+ YEARS is ENOUGH for THEM, Dick?
"This cannot happen here. These people . . . want to go home. They have their land, their shops, and the quicker they get home, the better."
Tell it to Israel, bub!
Holbrooke said Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, told him reconstruction in war-torn areas of Swat and nearby regions could cost between $500 million and $1 billion. That money, Holbrooke added, will have to come from the international community.
Oh, I see! WE CAUSE the PROBLEM and OTHERS MUST PAY to CLEAN IT UP!
--more--"
So what chump change are we forking over, and why is it taking so long?
ISLAMABAD - Donations to help refugees fleeing Pakistan's latest offensive against the Taliban surpassed $200 million this week as the country's allies sought to ease a crisis that risks eroding public support for military action against the militants.
Three weeks later we have over $3 million refugees and no more money -- but the Pakistani public is NOW FOR the SLAUGHTER?!
Just STOP it with the LYING, will you, MSM??
About 1.9 million people have fled the fighting in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas, a mountainous region not far from the Afghan border where the Taliban have found safe haven in recent years. More than 160,000 people are staying in sweltering camps just south of the battle zone; the rest have been taken in by relatives.
And strangers and neighbors, etc! Quite a conrast to the image constantly portrayed by the war-promoting, Muslim-hating AmeriKan jewpress, huh?
The United Nations has set up tent schools at the camps. At one, teachers drilled dozens of kids sitting cross-legged on mats before giving them packets of biscuits as an incentive to return.
"Children have to continue to go to school," said Daniel Poole, regional director of the UN's children's fund. "It's what makes things feel normal again, even in this context that's so abnormal."
Sigh, exhale, pffft! Yeah, the U.N. is so much help!
How about getting the UNSC into action and STOPPING THIS?!!!
The army says it has killed more than 1,000 militants and won back swaths of territory, but it faces stiff resistance from up to 5,000 well-trained and equipped fighters and has ventured no prediction of when the Taliban will be defeated.
Three weeks later, we have TURNED a CORNER!
The government organized a donors conference attended by representatives of foreign countries and aid groups to raise money to look after the refugees from the region, which was popular with skiers and holiday makers before the Taliban took over, enforcing an ultra-hardline brand of Islamic law and beheading opponents....
And how could they possibly be wanted back or be a risk to the caring, loving Pakistani government, 'eh, readers?
Something stinks about this "reporting," folks!
The army operation has so far enjoyed broad support, but analysts have warned that could ebb - as happened in early operations in the Northwest - if the refugees are seen to be neglected.
Which they are, but.... we turned a corner (deeper into the maze)!
US officials are scrambling to help the pro-Western government manage the refugee crisis and encourage it to sustain and expand its military action to other areas of the border region, where Al Qaeda and Taliban are ensconced....
That's what is making the crisis!!! WTF, readers!
--more--"
Also see: Holbrooke vs. Geo
